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International News Title: Pakistan Mosque Attacks Leave at Least 40 Dead Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images Pakistani commandos made way for a colleague carrying an injured worshiper at one of two mosques stormed by gunmen in Lahore, Pakistan, on Friday. ISLAMABAD—Taliban militants brandishing assault rifles and grenades attacked a pair of mosques of a minority religious sect in eastern Pakistan Friday, killing at least 40 people and taking a number of worshippers hostage before being overcome by police. The near-simultaneous attacks on mosques in separate neighborhoods of Lahore began with a barrage of grenade blasts, followed by gunfire, police and witnesses said. "There were thousands of worshipers in the mosque. Everyone was running for his safety," said Muhammad Naeem, who lives near one of the mosques targeted in the Friday afternoon attack. A man claiming to represent the "Punjab branch" of the Pakistan Taliban, formally known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, said the group was behind the attack, according the private Geo TV news station. Both mosques attacked during Friday prayers belong to the Ahmadi sect. The group considers itself Muslim but isn't recognized as such by other members of religion's mainstream sects. Radicals from the dominant Sunni branch of Islam in Pakistan have targeted Ahmadis before. Pakistan's constitution, too, doesn't consider Ahmadis as Muslims, and adherents have experienced years of discrimination—some of it state sponsored. But even in violence-wracked Pakistan, where Taliban and allied militants frequently target minority religious groups, especially Shiite Muslims, the Ahmadis have been spared large-scale attacks, making Friday's assault notable for its scope and bloodiness. At an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore's Model Town neighborhood, police and witnesses said five to six gunmen, some of them wearing suicide vests, broke through the light security cordon surrounding the place of worship and opened fire. "There were six huge blasts before the indiscriminate firing started," Faraz Ahmed, a witness, told a Geo TV. Some 1500 worshipers were inside the mosque at the time of the attack, police said. It wasn't immediately clear how they made it past the police protecting the building so quickly. The pitched firefight that broke out as police tried to retake the initiative could be heard for blocks, and the battle exacted a steep human toll: At least 22 people were killed and many more wounded, authorities said. Two attackers were captured; the rest were killed, officials said, although they didn't give a tally for the total number of assailants. At Lahore's Jinnah Hospital, where many of the bodies were brought, doctors were treating two dozen wounded, and nine were in critical condition, Dr. Javed Akram, the hospital's chief executive, said in a telephone interview. As Mr. Akram spoke, police were still battling to retake another mosque in the Garhi Shahu neighborhood, a few miles from where the other attack took place. There, news television stations showed footage of one gunmen firing on police from the minaret of the red-brick mosque. Khusro Pervez, a senior official in Lahore, told reporters that a dozen gunmen took part in the attack, including one who blew himself up. At least 18 people were killed at the mosque before police overcame the attackers, all of whom were also slain. Bustling Lahore has seen numerous attacks over the past few years as the Islamist insurgency that besets Pakistan spread from its mountainous northwest to the settled plains of Punjab province. The province is Pakistan's economic, political and military heartland, and Lahore is its capital. But Friday's attack was the first on Ahmadis in Lahore. The sect was founded centuries after the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam and believed by most of the faithful to be the final prophet, by a man who also claimed be a prophet. The sect is tiny in Pakistan, where there are only about four million Ahmadis in an overwhelmingly Muslim population of about 170 million. The majority of Pakistanis are Sunni Muslim, although there is a large Shiite minority. Islamist political hardliners pressured the Pakistani government into declaring Ahmadis non-Muslims in the 1970s. They are now legally prohibited from calling themselves Muslims or reciting Islamic prayers. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: All (#0)
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Country of origin of their weaponry is?
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
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